Billionaire John Paulson’s Top 5 Stock Picks

3. SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSEARCA: GLD)

Billionaire John Paulson has also been holding a huge position in SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSEARCA: GLD) since 2009. It is the third-largest holding of Paulson’s fund, accounting for 10.46% of the overall portfolio. The price of SPDR Gold Trust ETF grew 16% in the last twelve months, extending the ten years gains to 28%.  SPDR Gold Trust is an exchange-traded fund that invests in gold. Formed in 2004, it tracks the performance of the price of gold bullion. Here is what we said about GLD a couple of months ago:

Investors buy gold because they think its price in terms of US dollars will or could go up. It may go up a lot if printing trillions of dollars out of thin air to cover the budget deficits becomes the standard operating procedure of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury. Investors usually invest in gold as a hedge.

There were a total of 65 hedge funds with long GLD positions at the end of the third quarter. There are also other hedge fund managers who invest directly in physical gold, so the actual number of hedge funds that invest in gold is much higher. The total value of hedge funds’ GLD positions was nearly $3.5 billion. Ray Dalio has the largest position in GLD among all hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey. Dalio’s GLD bet was worth $967 million.